CoCo C. Tin 田智婷 is a Hong Kong-born designer, strategist, and writer specializing in cross-cultural investigations and alternative ecologies. She is trained as an architect and works with global collaborators to bring complex worlds to life. Recent research includes oceanic protocols, climate technologies, and bygone commons.

Her interdisciplinary practice spans Design, Strategy, and Editorial — building forecasts, initiatives, brands, books, furniture, exhibitions, spaces, and experiences. 

Clients and collaborators include: Prada, Miu Miu, WSA, Aspen Art Museum, Canadian Centre for Architecture, OMA, Food Architects, Collective Studio, Harvard GSD, Princeton SoA, Cornell AAP, and more. Her writing has appeared in FAR-NEAR, Rumor Review, DISC, Pairs, and other peer-reviewed publications. Her work has been exhibited at the Venice Architecture Biennale, the Architecture Association, Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies, UN Climate Change Conference, Évora Museum, and other cultural institutions. 

She holds a post-professional M.Des from Harvard Graduate School of Design and professional B.Arch Cornell University AAP, both with Distinction and Awards. 

She currently lives in New York, is a Senior Strategist at 2x4, and most recently taught at Yale University.


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Hot Water is Cool: Shanghai’s Tiger Stove Shops 老虎灶

Category: Editorial
Location: New York, US
Year:
2025


An essay on the Chinese traditional of drinking hot water an the now defunct communal Tiger Stove Shops from 20th century Shanghai.

Hot water is an acquired taste. It is brutal, colorless and fickle. Its clarity reveals every floating particle and magnifies every vessel’s blemish. Temperature – boiling hot 開水, hot 熱水, or lukewarm 溫水 – is only revealed when lips touch liquid. The aftertaste of hot water carries the stubborn stain of origin: plumbing infrastructure, energy supply network, and even the heating method and equipment.


Essay by CoCo C. Tin
Photography by Brian Kanagaki
Prop direction by Lulu Yao Gioiello 

FAR - NEAR Volume 6: Heat








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